3 ways startups can use Big Data to grow faster

It’s a much-noted fact that the majority of startups fail within the first couple of years. The ones that manage to succeed not only have an amazing product or solution, but they find a way to connect deeply with their customers.

One of the keys to going from scrappy startup to next big thing is the proper use and analysis of Big Data. With so much information being collected and available in today’s digital world, there’s never been a better time to be able to know exactly what your customer expects from your product and from you as a company.

The trick to using Big Data for success as a startup is knowing how to analyze it and how to apply that analysis to your particular product and organization. Here are three ways that startups can use Big Data to grow their businesses faster and smarter.

1. Use Big Data to get to know your customer

The #1 key to success in any business environment is to Know Your Customer! With the abundance of Big Data now available thanks to the internet, mobile apps, and social media, there has never been a better time for businesses to be able to know their customers intimately.

Startups can now use Big Data analytics to create highly-detailed buyer personas. Of course, this should be done during the very early stages of development and fine-tuned throughout the lifecycle of the product. Having a 360-degree view of your customer from the very beginning and designing the product with your exact customer needs in mind is a rock-solid plan for success.

Think about the way Amazon uses Big Data to analyze customer preferences and shopping habits. The company collects data as users shop and browse and this data allows them to determine the most appealing products to put in front of that customer, which leads to more items in the shopping cart and higher sales.

Get to know your customer intimately. Know their likes and dislikes. Anticipate their needs. And then give them exactly what they want. By using Big Data, sometimes you will be able to give them what they want before they even know they want it.

2. Use Big Data to fine tune your product

The best place to gain market insight is from your users. Your target audience is a gold mine when it comes to fine-tuning your product or service.

All the information you could possibly want to know about how to make your product a huge success can be gathered from your application itself and how users are interacting with it. Take for example one of our clients, TriPlay. Their eMusic platform allows users to listen their favorite downloads on every phone, computer, tablet and TV – even offline. They are processing terabytes of data for millions of users and using that data to personalize the listening experience through song suggestions, new artist introductions, and more.

Startups would be well-advised to develop a plan to gather as much information at the beginning of development through user and focus groups. The product or application should have built-in analytics that can produce a constant loop of feedback and user-generated suggestions for improvement.

3. Use Big Data as the basis for your startup

Another way to use Big Data to launch a successful startup is to actually make Big Data your product.

There are a number of promising Big Data startups currently on the horizon. Big Data startups in healthcare are leading the way as this tends to be the industry that can benefit the most from information analysis. For example, Flatiron Health is using information from oncologists, academics, hospitals, life science researchers and regulators on their shared technology platform in an effort to cure cancer.

Other Big Data startups that are achieving notable success include Datarobot – a powerful predictive modeling software that uses AI and machine learning, Veriluma – a prescriptive analytics solution, and Social Data Collective – an application that allows customers to monetize their personal data.

Big Data is big business. More and more companies, from startups to small business to enterprise organization, are looking for solutions that help them make sense of all the data available to them. Develop a unique solution that capitalizes on the actionable steps companies can apply from studying Big Data and you’re well on your way to success.

As the scope of technology continues to grow, the amount of information we can collect and analyze grows as well. Big Data is only going to become bigger data. In order to achieve true success as a startup, you need to break through all the noise and laser focus the information you need to provide the best experience for an audience of one: your customer.

Need more help understanding Big Data and how it can work for your organization? We have over 30 data science, machine learning, and Big Data engineers highly skilled in this type of development.

If you have plans to implement a Big Data for startups successfully, it's better to leave that to the professionals. Is Big Data development easy? Well, with us it's feasible. Get in touch with us and let your success story begin. Let’s chat!